Industry wants us to be consumers so badly, despite our best efforts to tread softly on the Earth, that they want us to purchase liner bags for our compost bins.

For our compost bins!

Are we really that stupid?

Ads for "Eco-Liners" and "Bio-Bags" claim to make composting super easy by helping us to "collect kitchen scraps" so that we can simply toss rotten veggies right into the garden.

That may be true. But at $12.99+ for 40 of these babies, are they really worth the money?

And what goes into manufacturing them? How much energy is used, how much carbon emitted, how many resources depleted, and are workers being compensated fairly?

Moreover, has taking out the compost become such an inconvenience that we need to buy a special bag to do it?

Well, perhaps...

If you're already composting food scraps, good for you! You have honorably committed yourself to the pain-in-the-ass effort it takes to collect stems and skins and egg shells, let them sit on your kitchen counter in a tub for days on end, and ignore that tub for as long as humanly possible until the fruit flies can't be avoided.

Which means, by then, you're dealing with a bucket full of moist, dead goo.

Dumping that puppy outside every now and again truly is a drag, I'll admit. I hate delivering a heap of decaying vegetable vomit into the even bigger vat of grossness outside, which is teeming with worms and slugs and Lord knows how many other creatures.

Who wouldn't want to make this dry-heave inducing chore a little less gooey?

I'd love to, but I just can't wrap my brain around buying a product to make it happen. I'm not that delicate a flower.

It's like paying good money for blue plastic bags for recycling (*which is a colossal waste of cash because recycling plant workers tear those bags open to dump out your jars and jugs, and then have to throw the bags away. If you want to read more about the recycling process, check out this writeup I did after a MRF plant tour.)

So I've come up with a free and stupid-easy solution to making composting less disgusting, by getting the funk out of your compost bin: ​

Start with an empty bin or pail or bucket to use in your kitchen for storing fruit and veg scraps. Make sure it has a lid.

Pour an inch or two of tap water in the bottom.

Toss in food scraps as you normally would throughout the day or week, funky pepper seeds and all, and replace the lid every time you add to it.

When it's full, take it to the garden pile to dump it, and because there's a nice pool of water in the bottom, all that funky goo splashes right out, leaving no slime behind!

​There you have it. No money wasted, dry heaves prevented. Just give your bucket a quick swish-out after dumping and be on your merry way.

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I'm Janeen; writer, mother, wife, and full-time, radical Reductionist. I share stupid-easy tips on how to save money while reducing your impact on the environment, & I'm committed to helping others live a life of simple sustainability.

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